API for parsing path strings

[Roger Riggs]

Hi Brian,

No particular novel use cases.
There are quite a few places in OpenJDK tools, etc that naively use 
string.split(pathSeparator) that
will misbehave on Windows in the edge cases and may not be paying 
attention to the empty path component case.
It would provide a measure of regularity and predictability to path parsing.
There was a query on stack Overflow about such an API.

Thanks, Roger

On 7/19/2018 4:20 PM, Brian Burkhalter wrote:
> Hi Roger,
>
> I was just wondering whether you have some specific use cases in mind.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Brian
>
> On Jul 19, 2018, at 12:39 PM, Roger Riggs <Roger.Riggs at Oracle.com 
> <mailto:Roger.Riggs at Oracle.com>> wrote:
>
>> Parsing of paths such as the values of properties java.class.path and 
>> java.library.path
>> do not have  direct support in the Java API.
>> There are several implementations within OpenJDK and a few variations 
>> exist with regard to
>> treatment of empty path elements and on Windows support for quoting.
>>
>> Would it be useful to have an API such as the following:
>>
>> […]
>>
>> Suggestions welcome, Roger
>